USA > Indiana > Cass County > History of Cass County, Indiana, from its earliest settlement to the present time; with Biographical Sketches and Reference to Biographies, Volume I > Part 40
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the flooded district. Mayor Fickle called a meeting of the citizens to consider what could be done. Hundreds of houses were inundated and the occupants could not get out, were suffering from cold, hunger and thirst, and many were liable to be swept away and drowned.
The churches, halls and private residences were thrown open to the flood victims, but the rescue work was very dangerous, and slow with the few small skiffs, so an appeal was made to Culver Military Academy, and to the U. S. Life Saving Station at Chicago and the next day six boats from Culver and as many from Chicago, sent down by the Chicago Tribune, each manned by ten skilled oarsmen, came to the city's relief and did magnificent and noble work in rescuing thousands from their perilous positions in houses surrounded and washed by the mad waves of the muddy and turbulent current. It was through the heroic efforts of these skilled seamen, with their perfect equipment that saved, many, many lives that otherwise would have perished. During the whole day of Wednesday, March 26th, the rescue work went on notwithstanding
CHICAGO LIFE SAVING BOAT ON BROADWAY AND THIRD STREET, LOGANS- PORT, MARCH 26, 1913
there was a blinding snow storm, four inches of snow having fallen, with a freezing temperature.
The rescue work was continued Thursday although the waters began to assuage and by Friday evening, March 28th, the waters had receded so that there was no danger from drowning and the boats could do no more except to communicate with the South Side and carry persons or provender back and forth, as all the bridges were washed away. Dur- ing the flood all the railroads and interurbans were tied up and could operate no trains, except the Vandalia north to South Bend; all the others were under water.
The telegraph and telephones were also out of commission, and half the phones in the city were also disabled. A relief committee was ap- pointed on the first afternoon of the flood with A. G. Jenkins in com- mand. Donations of money, food, clothing and bedding were asked and freely given by our citizens and headquarters opened in the high school building, and systematic methods of relief were adopted. Outside help soon began to pour in, both money and necessary supplies from all sur-
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rounding towns, as far as Chicago. The state and national governments each gave substantial aid and the high school and the basement of the postoffice resembled a commissary of a large army. Four thousand mat- tresses and other necessary household supplies were promptly received. Governor Ralston sent about one hundred state militia to do guard duty, to prevent depredations and enforce sanitary regulations, and aid in the distribution of supplies, and everybody worked in harmony to over- come and alleviate the distress and suffering of the greatest calamity that has ever overtaken Logansport.
At this writing, April 14th, after a careful estimate of the damage inflicted by the flood, Mr. A. G. Jenkins, the chairman of the board of relief, who acquitted himself nobly, reports that twelve hundred houses were inundated and their occupants were compelled to leave their homes; twelve houses were entirely swept away and many more were moved from their foundations or the latter undermined; scores of outbuildings with fencing and other objects were carried off by the rapid current; six thou- sand persons were temporarily made homeless.
The loss in personal property to these 1,200 families. $120,000 The damage to the houses 60,000
Losses suffered in the business district. 300,000
Bridges, culverts, streets and roads washed out. 200,000
Total estimated loss to our people. $680,000
This does not include the damage to railroad, telephone, interurban, heating and other companies whose losses will. run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, as the interurban bridge at Third street was car- ried away, the Panhandle shops were under six feet of water and the tracks of all roads were washed and undermined and telegraph and tele- phone lines had to be largely reconstructed.
With all this destruction of property and the rescue of thousands of people from the inundated districts, it is remarkable that no more lives were lost, only two lives sacrificed. Luther Maxwell, the hero of the hour, who lost his life trying to save others, and another who was found in the rear of a saloon on Sycamore street, his death probably being due more to "fire water" than to flood waters. Several deaths, however, from exposure were likely traceable to flood conditions.
A walk through the flooded district presented a sad and sorrowful scene. In the business district plate glass windows were broken, counters and all fixtures ruined, goods soaked with muddy water, the floors bulg- ing up and covered with an inch or two of slime, and everything strewn about promiscuously by the water. Basements filled with muddy water and the contents ruined. Furnaces out of commission and damaged, with a cold, March wind, everything water soaked presented a sad and sickening show.
In the resident part of the flooded district the picture was even worse. There all that many poor people possessed was water soaked and covered with mud and ruined. Mattresses, lounges, sideboards, bookcases, organs, pianos and other household goods thrown out in the yards, covered with mud and falling to pieces, wholly worthless; wearing apparel and all textile goods water soaked, hanging in the back yards; the floors of the houses bulging and covered with soft sticky mud; the plastering with the decorations falling off; the doors, windows and all woodwork warped, with paint and varnish scaling off, and at many houses the foundations, cement porches and walks were undermined and settling.
This is only one picture of the twelve hundred presented by this ap-
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palling flood. Many yards and streets were washed out into great holes two to four feet deep and the dirt and sand piled as high on other lots, streets or sidewalks. The pitiable and sympathetic features of it all was to see the occupants of these houses, themselves bespattered with mud, clearing out the slime, filth and debris of their once neat and com- fortable homes. But with all the loss, trials and hardships, it had one redeeming feature, that it brought out the better nature in our being, and placed the entire population of Logansport on a common plane, each vieing with the other in alleviating the suffering and distress of his fellowbeing, and taking that view, it may be a blessing in disguise. It will cause people to take notice that they are weak and can not do as they will but are subject to a higher and mightier Being and that His will, and not ours, must be done.
It is encouraging to see our people take such a philosophical view of their afflictions and trust that their trials will redound to their own true good and that doubting, they are not in despair; cast down but not destroyed; sorrowing but not without hope and disciplined in
A WRECKED HOME ON BIDDLE ISLAND
the fire of adversity; they may become better, nobler and grander and better fitted for the higher life.
CAUSES OF INCREASING FLOODS
That our rivers rise quicker and higher than in former years can not be disputed. The cause seems to be manifest. Great canals have been dredged to drain the swamp lands and farmers are yearly putting in tile to underdrain their flat clay lands, which runs the water off suddenly into the rivers. Again the land has largely been denuded of the virgin forests which obstrueted and held back the waters and prevented it from running off so rapidly and instead of the forest the land has not only been cleared but replaced by a system of ditching and tiling that greatly facilitates the discharge of the water into the rivers, and they rise more rapidly and reach a higher stage than ever before. The same rainfall today will cause the river to rise higher than it would ten years ago, because of the continual drainage which is not yet completed and until this drainage is completed no man can predict the height to which the river will rise from Vol. 1-20
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a given rainfall over the drainage basin of the Wabash river. The rain- fall prior to the recent floods was no greater than in former years yet the river rose higher from the above causes. Not every year will we have so heavy a rain, but we are likely to have it any year and, as history repeats itself, it is reasonable to suppose we will have as heavy rains some time in the future with similar results unless something is done.
Three remedies may be employed if feasible: First, by a system of reservoirs, to prevent the sudden flowing of the water into the river by thus holding it back; second, widen and deepen the channel of the river; third, construct a system of walls and dykes around the town. The first may not be practicable, but the other two are if the expense is not too great to make them impossible of execution. All river towns situated as Logansport is should take time by the forelock and prepare for the future by erecting buildings that will be damaged as little as possible by water and arranging to move and save their goods quickly in upper stories, or take measures to prevent or control further floods, or both.
LATER
After writing the above and before going to press, the committee through Mr. A. G. Jenkins report that they have received in cash from all sources, $52,000, with which they have purchased necessary household goods to distribute among those who lost all their household effects and are delivering the same to the houses in the flooded district. This is in addition to many car loads of provisions and goods received at the time to relieve the urgent needs of the sufferers.
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MUSKRAT IN POPCORN MACHINE
Nearly four weeks after the great flood of 1913 the proprietor of the Murdock hotel barber shop was testing a sanitary automatic popcorn machine which had been partially submerged and placed a nickel in the slot, heard the buzz of the mechanism working, saw the fire inside light, detected a loud and unusual scratching sound followed by a young musk- rat jumping out of the machine instead of a package of popcorn, and started to run down the street. He was too dazed and surprised to give chase until the rat made its escape. Opening the machine, they found inside evidence that the muskrat had made a long stay therein, ever since the flood nearly a month before. It had been washed in by the waters, taken refuge in the machine, where there was a supply of popcorn above and water in the base of the machine and Mr. Muskrat was well fed with plenty to drink and could have held the fort much longer.
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COAL DELIVERED
A colored man on the West Side, going back to his little home found a coal shed with a quantity of coal nicely located in his back yard, and with a broad grin, exclaimed: "De good Lawd has remembered me for I was gist out of coal."
CRAWFISH IN TYPEWRITER
Drs. Little and Troutman, whose office was flooded, in cleaning up their typewriter after the flood found a small crawfish encased in mud within the machine and when they removed the mud covering the craw. fish began to "crawfish," but the doctors pursued their find and it can now be seen among the anatomical curiosities in the doctors' office as a
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relic of the flood to remind them of their pleasant experiences when they were floating around in their office in six feet of water.
RAT SAILING IN A SHOE
When a shoe dealer opened his store in the midst of the flood, he found a rat had taken refuge in a shoe, a miniature Noah's ark, and was floating on the surface of the muddy water, seemingly contented. The shoe not only acted as a boat to keep his ratship's head above water, but also furnished food, as the rat was dining on the leather of the shoe, but seemed to be wise enough to appropriate the upper part of the shoe, and not gnaw a hole in it to let in the water.
GREAT HISTORIC FLOODS AND STORMS
Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania, May 31, 1889, where 2,235 lives were lost and $10,000,000 of property destroyed.
Pittsburg (Penn.) flood, July 26, 1874; two hundred drowned.
St. Louis storm, May 27, 1896; three hundred killed; $12,000,000 loss.
Omaha, Nebraska, 1913, flood and storm; one hundred and fifty killed; two hundred and fifty thousand homeless.
Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, March 25, 1913.
Chicago, Illinois, seven square miles of South Chicago inundated, April 2, 1877.
REPORT OF WEATHER BUREAU
In answer to a series of questions the director of the weather bureau at Indianapolis makes the following statement as to the operations of the weather bureau and meteorological observations taken in Logansport, but the total rainfall for any one year does not necessarily indicate excessive or destructive floods and the statements previously made are taken from local records and statements of actual observers in Cass county.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., April 19, 1913.
1. The United States Weather Bureau was established February 9, 1870. The local office of the weather bureau at Indianapolis was estab- lished in March, 1871. The cooperative station of the weather bureau at Logansport was established in January, 1881. The only meteorolog- ical records we have on file pertaining to Cass county are those of Logansport.
2. The average annual rainfall for Logansport is 36.51 inches.
3. The greatest 24-hour rainfall on record at Logansport was 3.69 inches, which occurred on July 2, 1903.
4. March 21, 1913, 0.54 inches; March 22, 00 inches; March 23, 0.45 inches; March 24, 2.30 inches; March 25, 1.97 inches; March 26, rain gauge washed away by flood and no further record available. Total rain fall during great flood of 1913, 5.32 inches.
5. This is the heaviest rainfall, for a similar period of time, on record at Logansport.
6. The wettest year was 1909; precipitation for that year was 51.26 inches.
7. The dryest year was 1899; precipitation for that year was 24.84 inches.
8. The coldest year was 1904; the mean annual temperature for that year was 47.8º F.
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9. The warmest year was 1911; the mean annual temperature for that year was 53.1º F.
10. The coldest day on record at Logansport was January, 1885, when a temperature of 25° below zero was recorded. The lowest official temperature of record for the state is 33º below zero, which was re- corded at Lafayette in January, 1885, and again on January 7, 1887.
11. The highest wind velocity ever recorded in Indianapolis occurred on September 1, 1897, when a velocity of 66 miles per hour from the west was recorded. Destructive wind storms of hurricane violence have occurred in different localities of the state at different times, but I am unable to say when or where the most severe storm occurred as our records of these occurrences are necessarily very meagre.
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CHAPTER XXVI MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD-CAPTURED SLAVES-SLAVE IN CASS COUNTY- VICE PRESIDENT MARRIES A NEGRO-MONSTER OF MANITOU-INDIAN ANECDOTES-MONEY HID AT OLD TOWN-LEGEND OF CEDAR ISLAND- INDIAN IN HOLLOW TREE-STEAMBOATS TO LOGANSPORT-CANAL BOAT WRECKED-COURTHOUSE SQUARE IN 1837-NAPOLEON TREE-WOLF STORY-WHITE BLACKBIRD-CURIOUS INSECTS-THE FIRST OF MANY THINGS GREAT FIRES ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES-OLDEST SET- TLERS-GINSENG FACTORY-AMUSEMENTS IN COURT-BLACK BEN -- ANECDOTE OF JUDGE CHASE JANE CRAWFORD-OLD TABLE-OLDEST MAN IN WORLD-OLD DOOR-FIRST AERIAL MAIL CARRIER.
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Many years before there was a mile of railroad in Cass county there existed a line of road that began, no one, save the initiated, knew where, and ended in the same mysterious place. It had regular relay stations but their location was equally mysterious. It had conductors but they were not figuring in the limelight. It was known as the Underground Railroad and was patronized exclusively by negroes, fugitives from bondage. They paid no fare but traveled on free passes. The road paid no wages and if any dividends were declared they were for future pay- ment. Its stock was not listed in Wall street nor elsewhere unless it be in kingdom come. There were many men and women in Cass county, in those days, of high character and sympathetic hearts, whose homes were open to all victims of cruelty and oppression. Their philanthropic and heroic deeds brought them no reward in this life, and even subjected them to suspicion, ridicule and ostracism; but who doubts that they added . stars to their crown of rejoicing when they passed over the "Land of the Leal" and heard the words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
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The first negro the writer ever saw was a runaway slave from Kentucky. It was in 1857. My father then lived seven miles north of Logansport on the Michigan pike and kept a station on the underground railroad. Lycurgus Powell and his 'son, John T. Powell, were station agents in Logansport. Benjamin Campbell, uncle of B. F. Campbell, Benjamin Powell and Josiah Powell were other agents in Cass county and a negro barber by the name of Turner in Rochester. It is needless to say that the trains on this underground railroad did not carry head- lights. The trains were not announced by clanging of bells, nor blowing of whistles, yet the station agents usually understood each other, and were anticipating the arrival of trains that only carried goods that were as black outwardly as the nights on which they traveled, yet they were human and possessed human aspirations. There seemed to be a system of communication between agents, probably by wireless telegraphy, even
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in those early days. Trains were only run at night, and the darker the night the more contented and happy were the passengers; and often they were purposely detained for days and even weeks at a station in some secluded Quaker cabin, until the roads were clear of slave hunters and the tracks were open into Canada. About 11 o'clock one summer night in 1857 John T. Powell brought a very black runaway slave to our house and father called us children up to see a black man of whom we had heard so much but never saw one. It was an exciting time and made a lasting impression upon our minds to see a black man, a slave, that was bought and sold as cattle. The stop at our house was of short duration and father and the black man were soon on their way to Roch- ester where they arrived long before daylight and safely landed the slave with Mr. Turner, who the next night piloted him on to Plymouth, and thus he was taken by trusty friends from station to station, from the Ohio river to Canada.
This is but one instance of many passengers that passed over this system of so-called "underground railroads," but thanks be to Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers this method of travel has long since passed into "innocuous desuetude."
The following year a black man and his wife came to our station, accompanied by a "wireless message," that the would-be owners of these negroes were close on the trail, so father hurried them over to a sub-station three miles northwest through a dense woods to Josiah Pow- ell's, who lived where his son Lemuel now resides, where this poor black couple remained for a week or more until the road was cleared of obstruc- tions in the shape of slave drivers, when they were safely carried to Roch- ester on a free pass, but not in a Pullman car.
To further show the methods of the promoters of this railroad and the determination and fearlessness of some of its agents we relate the following story, although it occurred in Washington county, Pennsyl- vania, where the writer's father, son of Josiah Powell was born and raised in the midst of a Quaker settlement near the Virginia line:
About 1831 a Virginia slave driver had captured a runaway slave, and had him shackled and sitting behind him on horseback. Josiah Powell accosted him on the highway, when the slave driver drew a pistol; sustained by a clear conscience, that he was doing God's duty, Mr. Powell said to my father, who carried a rifle and was an expert marks- man, Jacob, draw a bead on him, and the instant he shoots me, thee shoot him. Jacob obeyed the command of Josiah, and the latter assisted the slave to alight, removed the shackles and started to a nearby Quaker house and next morning was fifty miles nearer Canada securely lodged in a "friend's" cabin in a backwoods settlement, where the negro re- mained for a week or more, before venturing on to the next station. Jacob kept his gun leveled at the slave driver, who was bidden to hasten south to his native state of Virginia, which he did.
SLAVES CAPTURED BUT RESCUED
John Morris lived in Kentucky, near the Ohio river, and had a slave whose name was David Powell. On the night of October 9, 1847, this slave with his wife, Lucy, and four children ran away and by the com- plete system of underground railroads reached Michigan and in a back- woods Quaker settlement, eight miles from Cassopolis, they were given employment and a cabin in which to live. Search was made for two years without finding.them, but in September, 1849, Mr. Morris heard of them and with eight men kidnapped the colored Powell family in their cabin home and started for their Kentucky plantation, but the Quakers
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in the neighborhood were soon apprised and gave hot pursuit and over- took them at South Bend. Morris and his men at first showed fight, but were outnumbered and submitted to legal restrictions. Wright Mandlin swore out a writ of habeas corpus, and as we then had no fugitive slave law, the judge freed the colored family, but the owner brought suit in the federal courts at Indianapolis and made Mandlin and his aids pay heavily for the slaves. They never returned, however, to their master but soon after went to Canada. This was an exciting case and Cass county people were at the time much interested in the outcome as the parties passed through Logansport from and to Kentucky.
SLAVE IN CASS COUNTY
Charles J. Murray, a Kentuckian and slave holder, married Margaret McBean, of that state. She was a sister of Gillis McBean, who was one of the earliest settlers in Logansport and at whose house, on Railroad street, the three commissioners appointed by the legislature to locate the county seat of Cass county met in 1829 and selected Logansport as the seat of justice. In 1844 Gillis McBean's widow lived on the Skelton farm on the north bank of Eel river, in Clay township, and Mr. Murray and his wife moved from Kentucky and lived with Mrs. McBean and brought a negro slave, a mulatto girl, whom they kept as their slave, but at the approach of winter they sent her back to Kentucky. This is prob- ably the only negro slave ever harbored as such within the confines of Cass county. Giles G. Thomas, who lived on the adjoining farm, well remembers this colored slave and relates many interesting reminiscences. Mr. Thomas also relates an interesting fact, not known to many or per- haps any of our people, that Richard M. Johnson, vice-president of the United States from 1837 to 1841, was married to a black negro woman and when he went to Washington as vice-president he took his negro wife with him and created quite a sensation in the capitol. Mr. Thomas says his mother-in-law lived near Mr. Johnson's home in Kentucky and has often seen his wife; that she was not a mulatto, but a very black negro woman.
THE MONSTER AT MANITOU
In the year 1837 there appeared in the columns of the Logansport Telegraph a communication supposed to have been written by a Logans- port pioneer artist, Wm. Winter, giving a detailed description of the monster, that in early times, was said to have inhabited Lake Manitou near Rochester.
Mr. Winter describes the monster as related to him by a fisherman, who said he had seen it and it was terrible to behold. The serpent, which they represented to be sixty feet long, had a frontal bone three feet across, eyes as big as saucers, and a forked tongue as red as blood. At the time the article created quite a sensation throughout Cass county and parties interested in the piscatorial art were made up to explore the lake and capture the monster, but he was never taken and some said that our esteemed artist was imposed upon by some fisherman who had taken on too big a load of "Indian fire water," but the lake always bore the name of Manitou or Devil's Lake.
INDIAN ANECDOTE
Burl Booth relates that a drunken Indian, one hot summer day in the thirties, lay as a nuisance in the market place between Second and Third streets, with only a cloth around his loins. He lay with his face
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down; some mischievous person raised the cloth and poured some turpen- tine under it; soon the Indian woke up, began to squirm, and presently got up, gave an unearthly "war whoop" and flew like a streak of light- ning for the Wabash river, a square away, and plunged into it, and there sat down in the river for some time, to the amusement of the settlers who had been attracted by the familiar war whoop and swift running of the Indian. The turpentine was an effectual remedy in wak- ing the Indian from his drunken stupor.
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